Interpreting China’s Arrival It has become nearly conventional wisdom that China is the post-Cold War world’s emerging great power that poses the most difficult questions for the future of international security. Whether scholars, pundits, and policymakers are interested in envi- ronmental impact, human rights, economic affairs, or traditional military- security issues, most who think about the dynamics of the international system in the twenty-first century believe it essential to consider the rise of China and its implications.’ This article focuses mainly on the military-security dimen- sions of this topic, exploring the basis for claims about China’s growing power and the expectations about its significance that are rooted in relevant strands of international relations theory. Perhaps the interest in China’s international role should not be altogether surprising, inasmuch as it has long been a country with three of the least malleable attributes required for membership in the great power club-vast territory, rich resources, and a large population. And, in the course of the past century, other key requirements for international influence have been succes- sively added. By the mid-twentieth century, the victory of the Chinese Com- munist Party (CCP) resolved a century-long pattern of internal political disunity and ended a series of varied foreign encroachments on China’s sov- ereignty. During the Cold War, the new regime’s leaders gradually enhanced Avery Goldstein is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of From Bandwagon to Balance-of-Power Politics: Structural Constraints and Politics in China, 1949-1978 (Stanford, Calif..: Stanford University Press, 1991), and is completing a study entitled Deterrence and Security in a Changing World: China, Britain, France, and the Enduring Legacy of the Nuclear Revolution. I would like to thank Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Thomas J. Christensen, and the anonymous reviewers for International Security who provided helpful comments on various drafts of this article. 1. The new wave of scholarly interest in East Asian security and China emerged in about 1993. Just two years earlier, such matters received relatively short shrii in one of the first serious comprehensive overviews of the post-Cold War world landscape. See Robert J. Art, “A Defensible Defense: America’s Grand Strategy after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Spring 1991), pp. 553. Capturing the spirit of the recent “China-mania,” the February 18,1996, New York Times Magazine camed as its cover story, “The 21st Century Starts Here: China Booms. The World Holds Its Breath,” by Ian Buruma, Seth Faison, and Fareed Zakaria. The editors of International Security, sensitive to market demand, have published an edited volume of selected articles entitled East Asian Security, whose largest section is a collection of major articles under the heading, ”The Implications of the Rise of China.” Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller eds., East Asian Security (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996). International Security, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Wmter 1997/98), pp. 36-73 0 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 36 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.22.3.36 by guest on 26 September 2021 Interpreting China’s Arrival 1 37 their international prestige and eventually overcame attempts at diplomatic isolation to assume their role as the sole legitimate representatives of the Chinese state in key international bodies, most notably the United Nations Council. In addition, during the Cold War the CCP invested heavily in the rapid development of the modern era’s military badges of great power sbwnuclear warheads and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Into the last decade of the Cold War, however, China remained a ”candidate” great power because the communist regime had failed in its efforts to promote domestic development that could provide the basis for comprehensive eco- nomic and military clout at world-class levels. A vast army supplied with obsolete conventional, and crude nuclear, weaponry left China as one of a group of second-ranking powers, and among them perhaps the least capable.’ But beginning in 1979, while the Soviet Union was retrenching internationally and then imploding, new leaders in Beijing were initiating a series of sweeping reforms that would result in high-speed growth-both quantitative expansion and qualitative improvement^.^ By the end of the Cold War, China was more than a decade into an economic takeoff that led many to reach the seemingly inescapable conclusion that the country was destined finally to add the last pieces to its great power puzzle. Beijing would have the wealth and expertise to be a leading player in international economic affairs, assets that might also provide the foundation for a large, first-class military capability. In short order, many who had comfortably spoken about a Chinese great power some time in the future began to worry about the implications of a China sooner, rather than later, having the ability to pursue its own interests more aggressively. Often, those thinking about this prospect believed it spelled trouble for inter- national security, at least in the East Asian region and perhaps bey~nd.~ 2. See Awry Goldstein, “Robust and Affordable Security: Some Lessons from the Second-Ranking powers During the Cold War,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 15, No. 4 (December 19921, pp. 478- 479,519. 3. For concise accounts of China’s reforms, see Harry Harding, China’s Second Rmolutzon (Wash- ington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1987); Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China (New York W.W. Norton, 1995); and Nicholas R. Lardy, Chinn in the World Economy (Washington, D.C.: Institute for h’hnational Economics, 1994). 4. on the increased importance of China for U.S. foreign policy, see then-US. Secretary of State Wamn Christopher‘s May 1996 speech to a joint meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Asia Society, the National Committee on US.-China Relations, and Business Week. “‘American Interests and the U.S.-China Relationship’ Address by Warren Christopher,” Federal Department and Agency Documents, May 17, 1996, Federal Document Clearing House, from NEXIS Library, LexWNexis, Reed Elsevier (hereafter NEXIS). For samples of the emerging scholarly literature, see Aaron L. Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry: Prospects for Peace in a Multipolar Asia,” International SCUritY, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Winter 1993/94), pp. 5-33; Richard K. Betts, “Wealth, Power, and Instability: East Asia and the United States after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Winter Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.22.3.36 by guest on 26 September 2021 International Security 22:3 I 38 In this article, I analyze the conventional wisdom. First, I examine its basis. In what sense has China’s power been increasing? To what extent do the claims of a rapidly rising China reflect reality as opposed to perceptions? What accounts for divergence between objective indicators and judgments about China’s power? I then consider the key interpretive question: What are the expected consequences of China’s rising power, whatever the pace at which it is increasing, for international security? My analysis (1) indicates that the recent increases in China’s capabilities most important for international secu- rity, especially military power, have thus far been modest; (2) explains why expectations for great gains in the foreseeable future may well be exaggerated; and (3) acknowledges that although international relations theory provides persuasive reasons to expect China’s growing power to increase the frequency and intensity of international conflicts, it also suggests ways to manage such conflicts and, perhaps most important, suggests why dire scenarios involving major war are unnecessarily alarmist. Several caveats are in order. First, the core topic of this article, ”power,” is a highly contested term, and the debate about its meaning cannot possibly be resolved in this space: Second, and perhaps ironically, in this case it is easier to deal with the theoretical-interpretive issues than with the empirical ones. The CCP has changed much about the way it runs China since it initiated its reform program, but it has not warmly embraced the notion of transparency in the military-security realm.6 Third, the accuracy of assessments of China’s 1993/94), pp. 34-77; Denny Roy, “Hegemon on the Horizon: China’s Threat to East Asian Security,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 149-168; Michael G. Gallagher, ”China’s Illusory Threat to the South China Sea,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 169-194; Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflict with China (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997); and Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S. Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China’s Search for Security (New York W.W. Norton, 1997). 5. For a brief introduction to the debate and references to some of the key positions, see William Curti Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), especially pp. 3-10. 6. On the strategic rationale for China resisting transparency, see Goldstein, ”Robust and Afford- able Security,” pp. 485-491, 500-503; Alastair Iain Johnston, ”China’s New ’Old Thinking: The Concept of Limited Deterrence,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Winter 1995/96), p. 31, fn. 92. China’s Defense White Paper in 1995 was an unrevealing disappointment. The PLA has reportedly begun a more forthcoming draft for release in late 1997. See “White Paper-China: Arms Control and Disarmament,” Xinhua News Agency, November 16,1995, from NEMS; Banning N. Garrett and Bonnie S.